The invention relates to the detection of eggs with an open crack. During the grading of eggs, leaking eggs, the so-called open-crack eggs, cause soiling of the machine and soiling of other eggs. These open-crack eggs therefore need to be detected at as early a stage as possible without other eggs being soiled. A system for detecting and removing leaking eggs therefore has two related aspects: to prevent soiling before the detection and remove broken eggs, and to detect the broken eggs themselves.
In the case of a known device, eggs are picked up from a cardboard tray by the transfer device and then placed on a conveyor of a machine, for example a grading machine. The device has several pick-up elements, for example suction cups, which are each connected by way of a corresponding channel to a common pressure space in which a vacuum can be applied by means of a vacuum pump. The transfer device picks up a plurality of rows of eggs from the tray in one go by means of the suction cups and then places said eggs on the conveyor of the conveying device. The receiving spaces of the conveyor in the known conveying device are formed by two successive rollers, each roller bounding two receiving spaces. The centre-to-centre distance between the receiving spaces in the direction of conveyance corresponds approximately to the centre-to-centre distance between the eggs on the tray. Since two eggs generally rest on each roller, there is a risk that if an egg is split or cracked, the contents of the egg is transferred by means of the rotating roller from one egg to the other egg. The result of this smearing of the contents of the broken egg is that the conveyor and the eggs on it quickly become soiled, which is undesirable.
The object of the invention is to provide an improved conveying device in which the problem of smearing is overcome.